Oil and Mineds

Calculated Risk has a piece about the rising US trade deficit, which mostly consists of oil.

However, as Scott Sumner has noted (via Robin Hanson), that doesn’t really matter, because people have already decided that China is the enemy…even though both Saudi Arabia and Germany happen to run the same level of trade surpluses with the US.

Bottom Line: In the court of public opinion, facts don’t matter…narratives do.